Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Paul Austin Ardoin

What inspired you to write “Ceremony”?

Ardoin: My oldest son is a teenager and very much into late 1970s and 1980s post-punk music. He loves Joy Division and the band that it evolved into, New Order.

About a year ago, one of my college roommates reached out to me on Facebook, and he used to listen to New Order all the time. I wasn’t a huge fan back then, although I did like a few of their songs. After talking with my old roommate and hearing New Order from my son’s room, I started reminiscing, and I came across New Order’s 1987 compilation album Substance. It immediately struck me how many of the song titles on that album would be good murder mystery titles (there’s even a track called Murder on the expanded release).

I almost immediately started thinking of a series where each book title was the same as a song title from Substance, and of course my brain connected poisoning murders to the word “substance”… and everything grew naturally out of that.

Ceremony is the first book in the series, and it’s also the lead track on Substance. The song is dark and brooding, and I tried to capture that by setting the stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the late winter. The body of the victim is found in a 15th century chapel, brought over stone by stone from Europe. I worked for a company based in Milwaukee for a few years, and I loved the city, even in the dead of winter. At Marquette University in the heart of the city, the St. Joan of Arc Chapel just underwent a restoration. Like the fictional chapel in my story, it was brought over to the United States stone by stone from Europe, and is said to be the 14th-century church where Joan of Arc worshipped. With this backdrop and the leadoff track from Substance playing in my head, the story and the characters began to spill out.

How did you come up with the names of your main characters?

Ardoin: The names of the federal investigative team that appear in each book are plays on New Order band member names (but to be clear, the characters are NOT based on the band members—only their names). The bass player goes by the name of Peter Hook, but his birth name was Peter Woodhead. “Kep” is a Czech version of “Peter”—so Dr. Kep Woodhead was born. The lead singer and guitarist is named Bernard Sumner; “summoner” and “beckoner” are synonyms, so voilà, after a literary gender change, Bernadette Becker came into being. The other band members are Stephen Morris (Lt. Maura Stevenson is the head of the division that Kep and Bernadette work for) and Gillian Gilbert (Lesley Gill is the tech wizard, and Lesley is Gillian Gilbert’s middle name).

As far as the other characters that appear in this book: The chapel where the body is found is called the Anne Askew Chapel. Askew isn’t nearly as famous as Joan of Arc, but she was quite influential in the later days of King Henry VIII’s reign. Anne Askew’s husband—with whom Anne had major disputes with—was named Thomas Kyme, and the murder victim in Ceremony is named Kymer Thompson. Astute readers might notice other character names around Askew’s life (for example, Henry VIII’s sixth wife was named Catherine Parr; she was at odds with Anne Askew, and her surname pops up in the book).

Not all of the characters have the connections to Anne Askew or New Order, but most of them do. I keep hoping a reader will email me and say “Did you know that when this character’s name is translated from Serbian, it means…” but I suppose that’s a level of writer fame I haven’t achieved yet.

Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?

Ardoin: For the Murders of Substance series, I try to combine fact and fiction. Bernadette and Kep travel around the United States to solve the nation’s most bizarre poisoning murders, and Kep is a “supersmeller.” Supersmellers actually exist—there’s an article about one who works for NASA, because it turns out you need people like that to determine which smells can be managed in a closed environment with no air exchange. But the Controlled Substance Analysis Bureau is not a real federal agency. Likewise, some of the restaurants in Ceremony are real restaurants in Milwaukee. “Kilbourn Tech” is not a real university, however; it’s an amalgam of Marquette University and University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (the latter has an incredible freshwater science program, which plays a big role in the book).

If "Ceremony” were adapted into a movie, who would you like to see cast to play your lead characters?

Ardoin: Bernadette Becker is in her early 40s, going through a divorce, and is ripped. An actor like Zoë Bell would be a good choice, although maybe pulling an MMA fighter with Hollywood aspirations would be good too!

As for Dr. Kep Woodhead, casting could go either to the bearded Tom Hanks side of things, or maybe an actor like Nick Offerman could show off his dramatic chops.

I always have Scandal’s Olivia Pope in mind whenever Lt. Maura Stevenson appears, so Kerry Washington would be my first choice. I think Sierra Aylina McClain would capture Lesley Gill’s balance of professionalism and independence.

What is your favorite genre, book, and/or author?

Ardoin: I grew up reading mysteries. I started with Encyclopedia Brown and Danny Dunn, Scientific Detective, and I was reading Agatha Christie in junior high. I majored in Creative Writing in college, and at that time, my professors turned up their nose at everything that wasn’t literary fiction. I really like Paul Auster, and his 1992 novel Leviathan is possibly my favorite. About a year ago, I finally started reading N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, and The Fifth Season might very well be the best book I’ve ever read. I don’t usually read fantasy or speculative fiction, but wow, The Fifth Season is amazing.

What are you working on next?

Ardoin: I’ve just published Everything’s Gone Green, the second book in the Murders of Substance series (and yes, “Everything’s Gone Green” is the second song on New Order’s Substance album). Earlier this week, I finished the first draft of The Offside Coroner, the eighth novel in my first crime fiction series, The Fenway Stevenson Mysteries. I’m also working on a few short stories, deleted scenes, and background essays for my Patreon subscribers.

Learn More About the Author and Ceremony here:

Facebook: @PaulArdoinAuthor
www.twitter.com/paulardoin

www.instagram.com/paulaustinardoin

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